


Borrowed Time

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5x22 The End, Allusions to Canonical Character Death, Canon Compliant, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Season Finale, Sick Character, everyone's sad and crying and i'm no exception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 12:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: In between the final fight and the epilogue, when everyone's winding down. Daisy and Coulson kinda don't want to talk about it, and kinda do, and neither of them likes thinking about the future much.Short thing because I'm crying and you're crying and we're all crying and there's nothing we can do to make it better so uhhhh fuck you cry some more.





	Borrowed Time

“Hey,” whispered a voice, and then he coughed and said a little louder, “Hey.”

Daisy took her feet off the bedframe and opened her eyes, blinking as she adjusted to the bright lights in the med bay. Coulson looked barely awake, but his eyes were open, and there was the very first inklings of a smile on his face.

“Hey,” she said. She didn’t want to ask ‘How are you?’ They all _knew_ how he was. “That was really stupid what you did,” she told him instead.

He smiled. “Saving the world is stupid now?” he asked.

“You know what I’m talking about.” She leaned on her knees and put her fingers in his hand. He twitched, trying to squeeze her hand, but he couldn’t manage it.

“Definitely bummed I didn’t get to see that fight,” he said.

“Yeah, you should be,” she replied. “I was awesome.”

The heart monitor filled in the silences for them. Daisy looked at her watch. She’d been dozing for a while. First chance she had to talk to Coulson since she’d left him in the quinjet, and she’d almost slept through it.

“I guess you’re double-super now, huh?” he said.

She looked at her hands. They were the same hands she’d had when she met him – she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Double-super hands looked the same as super hands, the same as regular hands. “I guess,” she echoed. If he’d just taken the serum…

“It was a few more seconds on the clock, Daisy,” he broke in gently. “It wasn’t worth it.”

She closed her eyes to better fight the tears forming. She wasn’t going to cry. Not right now. “It was worth it to me.”

“I know.”

They’d been over this a hundred times. Coulson was only one man, and he was already living on borrowed time. He was ready to go.

And no one else was ready to let him.

“So, you got a bucket list, Phil? Cause now would be the time,” she said, trying to smile.

He gave as much of a laugh as he could manage – not much – and answered, “You know, I kinda want to go to Tahiti.”

She laughed, and it was a morbid kind of sound, feeling wrong in her throat. “Oh my God.”

“Just sorta feels right.” He reached for her hand again. There were green veins snaking over his skin, making him tremor. She held tight to his hand with both of hers, frowning to herself.

“Daisy,” he said, and he was using his bad-news-incoming voice. _Don’t_ , she thought, but he did anyway. “I don’t want you to be there. When I go.”

“Coulson…”

“I know. But please. It… it isn’t exactly going to be pretty.” His eyes were pleading, his bottom lip quivering. She couldn’t help noticing the lines creasing his face that had only got worse these last few days. And the grey that would never get to finish slowly taking over his messy stubble and his temples. The cannula under his nose didn't exactly help him look any healthier, either.

She swallowed the knot in her throat. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I want goodbye to be on my terms,” he said. “Daisy. Please. I don’t want your last memory of me to be... waiting around for me to _die_. I don't want you to have to sit there wondering how many more times you're going to be able to wake me up again, okay? I...”

Damnit. She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, or she was going to drown in them. “You want me to just send you off? To some, to some beachhouse, and never see you again?”

“I’d say I would send you a postcard, but, you know…”

“Fuck you,” she told him, wet and without conviction. She rested her head on his stomach, still clutching his hand. “Fuck you, AC. You’re so not cool.”

“I know,” he said, and he pulled their hands up to his face. He kissed Daisy’s hand, and then let it fall again, clumsy, without any energy left.

She listened to him breathe, steady for now, until he drifted to sleep. Maybe she could fool herself, if she tried, that he was going to be okay. That their luck would turn around at the last second like it always did, because they were in the dark together and they didn't let go, that just wasn't how they operated. But she knew, she knew so strongly that it hurt, that convincing herself of that would still only be one more minute of borrowed time.


End file.
